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Monday, May 24, 2010

Sacramento Press / Rhee urges top school officials to get political, find supporters

Sacramento Press / Rhee urges top school officials to get political, find supporters

Rhee urges top school officials to get political, find supporters



School district superintendents should find ways to gain political support from community members, according to Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
At a Sacramento Press Club luncheon Monday, Rhee urged the city’s businesspeople, media professionals and politicians to back Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond in his efforts.
These groups should “give this man some cover,” Rhee said.
Superintendents are not elected to their positions, but they can benefit from making alliances with groups, she said.
“When you are a superintendent and you want to do bold things that might not be popular, you have to have some political capital," she said.
Rhee, who is engaged to Mayor Kevin Johnson, gave the example of layoffs she made last fall. She said that because of a budget crunch, she laid off 266 teachers.
Rhee said she changed the way layoffs had been carried out, deciding that the criteria for a layoff should be the quality of a person’s work instead of the length of time they have worked for the school district.
The business community’s support of her criteria was helpful, she said.
“The business community were the ones who were my strongest supporters of this,” she said. “They came out and said: This is how we run our businesses. We would never run an organization in a way that you were just ... getting rid of people based on how many years they’ve been there

Blog U.: Unionizing at For-Profits - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

Blog U.: Unionizing at For-Profits - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

Unionizing at For-Profits

By Dean Dad May 24, 2010 10:14 pm
This is one of those "yeah, but" stories. The impulse is good, but the details are tricky.
Apparently, the faculty at the Art Institute of Seattle, a for-profit college, is doing an underground drive to unionize with the American Federation of Teachers. The idea, according to the IHE story, is to put in place safeguards that will allow faculty to give honest grades without fear of reprisal. (The 'fear of reprisal' part also explains the 'underground' part.)
Hmm.
First, it's great to see the academic unions start to make some forays into the for-profit side of higher ed, even if it's somewhat accidentally. It could theoretically curb some of the worst workplace abuses in that sector. It would also put the unionized public colleges (hi!) at less of a competitive disadvantage.
As regular readers know, I spent years in for-profit higher ed, both as faculty and as administration, and I heard periodic rumblings there about unionization. The party line there was that if the faculty voted to unionize, the company would simply shut down that campus. (It had enough campuses all over the place to make the threat credible.) The issues that riled up the faculty there were mostly around teaching load (twelve months per year, fifteen credits at a time, and only a week between semesters), though there was also some concern about

Research ties W.Va. dropouts to metro economies Education news - Boston Globe - MCAS results - latest education news - Boston.com

Education news - Boston Globe - MCAS results - latest education news - Boston.com

Research ties W.Va. dropouts to metro economies

By Lawrence Messina
Associated Press Writer / May 24, 2010
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CHARLESTON, W.Va.—West Virginia's metropolitan areas could pump up their economies by millions of dollars if they drive down the dropout rates at their public schools, new research suggests.
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The Washington, D.C. based Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that keeping half those children in school would increase annual incomes by a combined $17.3 million for the Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Weirton and Wheeling metro areas.
Other benefits would include $12.9 million more in annual consumer spending and a $20.3 million boost to the economic outputs of these areas by the career midpoints of those students, the nonprofit group said. The improved earnings

Teacher in trouble after students don Klan robes

Teacher in trouble after students don Klan robes

Teacher in trouble after students don Klan robes

Monday, May 24, 2010
(05-24) 17:01 PDT ATLANTA (AP) --
A North Georgia teacher is on administrative leave and could lose her job after she allowed four students to don mock Ku Klux Klan outfits for a final project in a high school class Thursday, administrators said.
The sight of people in Klan-like outfits upset some black students at the school and led at least one parent to complain.
Catherine Ariemma, who teaches the advanced placement course combining U.S. history with film education, could face punishment ranging from suspension to termination, Lumpkin County School Superintendent Dewey Moye said Monday. Ariemma has spent nearly six years teaching in the rural county about 75 miles north of Atlanta.
She told The Associated Press Monday that students were covering an important and sensitive topic — but one that she might handle differently in the future.
"It was poor judgment on my part in allowing them to film at school," Ariemma said. "... That was a hard lesson learned."
The incident happened at Lumpkin County High School. Ariemma said her students spend the year viewing films and later create their own films to watch in class. She said


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/05/24/national/a170122D33.DTL&type=education#ixzz0ouMRz9KV

Michelle Rhee: Mayoral control of schools facilitates reform - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Michelle Rhee: Mayoral control of schools facilitates reform - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Michelle Rhee: Mayoral control of schools facilitates reform


MIchelle Rhee speaking at Monday's Press Club event. Rhee, is chancellor of the Washington DC Public Schools system and fiancee of Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. May 24, 2010
Controversial education reformer Michelle Rhee spoke at a Sacramento Press Club event Monday, where she said California schools face an uphill battle without mayoral control.
Rhee, the fiancée of Mayor Kevin Johnson, joked as she acknowledged the nicknames she's garnered as the outspoken chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools system.
"People have called me the terminator, the hammer, the dragon lady," said Rhee, who served on the board of Johnson's St. HOPE Public Schools in 2006 and 2007.
D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty hired Rhee in 2007 after persuading his City Council to give him authority over the school system's operations and budget.

City says strapped schools can go without parent coordinators | GothamSchools

City says strapped schools can go without parent coordinators | GothamSchools

City says strapped schools can go without parent coordinators

Joining 6,400 teachers on the chopping block are 350 parent coordinators whose schools will no longer be required to employ them, Chancellor Joel Klein announced today.
For the first time since the position was created in 2003, high schools will be allowed to go without a parent coordinator, Klein told principals today, saving up to 350 schools just over $40,000 a year each. Parent coordinators whose jobs are eliminated will be at high risk of layoff, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte. Elementary and middle schools are still required to keep a parent coordinator on staff.
The instruction is a stark example of how budget cuts could undo some of Mayor Bloomberg’s most ambitious education initiatives. The creation of the parent coordinator position in January 2003 was a central element of Bloomberg and Klein’s early reforms.
Klein also announced today that the Fair Student Funding formula the city devised to fund schools according to their students’ needs no longer covers some schools’ essential costs. To compensate for the outsized cuts at those schools, the department will redistribute money from schools with less lean budgets. While the shift technically does not deconstruct Fair Student Funding, it effectively makes it moot for the time being.
“No school’s FSF budget will be reduced as a result of the shift, and we are, of course, working to ensure it will have only a minimal impact on your schools,” Klein told principals in an email this afternoon.




Remainders: With less money, fewer choices on the lunch line

Could Texas textbook changes end up in California? | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Could Texas textbook changes end up in California? | News10.net | Sacramento, California | Education

Education News


Could Texas textbook changes end up in California?

Could Texas textbook changes end up in California?

After the Texas state school board adopted landmark changes to textbooks last week, one California lawmaker is pushing his proposal to make sure those changes don't end up here.

Vacaville music students play 8 hours straight to save their teachers

Vacaville music students play 8 hours straight to save their teachers

Vacaville played host to an eight-hour music marathon Saturday as students from almost every school in the district came to perform to save music teachers' jobs and music programs.

Perfect attendance earns Elk Grove senior a new car

Perfect attendance earns Elk Grove senior a new car

Nine graduating seniors in the Elk Grove Unified School District woke up early for the chance to win a new car.

California students, districts sue over budget cuts

California students, districts sue over budget cuts

Robles-Wong et al. vs. State of California asks the court to declare the current school finance system unconstitutional because the state doesn't provide enough money to meet its own educational requirements.

Grand jury report urges concessions from Sacramento teachers union

Grand jury report urges concessions from Sacramento teachers union

A grand jury report made public Wednesday singled out the Sacramento City teachers union in Sacramento City Unified School District's budget woes.
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What is Happening in RTT applications? � The Quick and the Ed

What is Happening in RTT applications? � The Quick and the Ed

What is Happening in RTT applications?

Everyone knows about the huge move that Colorado has made to lanch it into one of the frontrunner spots in the second round of Race to the Top. But, what have other states been doing to improve their chances. Democrats for Education Reform have been keeping a close eye on things. Take a look at what some key states are up to (here).

A Middle Ground on Seniority Policies

The back and forth in the last couple of weeks over seniority layoff policies goes something like this. When districts are forced to lay off teachers based on seniority policies, those layoffs happen disproportionately at schools serving low income students. Research has shown that high rates of teacher turnover impacts the achievement levels at schools. This results in a civil rights issue because of the disproportionate impact that these policies have on the most disadvantaged students. (SeeNational Journal discussion and new CRPE report for more details on the debate and research).
On the other side, the best argument seems to be that districts do not have good teacher evaluation systems,

A Middle Ground on Seniority Policies � The Quick and the Ed

A Middle Ground on Seniority Policies � The Quick and the Ed

A Middle Ground on Seniority Policies

The back and forth in the last couple of weeks over seniority layoff policies goes something like this. When districts are forced to lay off teachers based on seniority policies, those layoffs happen disproportionately at schools serving low income students. Research has shown that high rates of teacher turnover impacts the achievement levels at schools. This results in a civil rights issue because of the disproportionate impact that these policies have on the most disadvantaged students. (SeeNational Journal discussion and new CRPE report for more details on the debate and research).
On the other side, the best argument seems to be that districts do not have good teacher evaluation systems, and until such evaluation systems are in place, any policy for teacher layoffs other than based on seniority would end up being arbitrary and could actually discriminate against veteran teachers because they are more expensive. In the long run, clearly districts need to improve the quality of their teacher evaluation systems for a lot of reasons including this one. Then the debate devolves into a fight over what are the right measures for an evaluation system. Over the next couple of years, we will learn a lot about measuring the effectiveness of